Jumat, 24 Februari 2012

English Article: Q & A PowerPoint Presentations

Oleh: Monika Sugiarto

The Managers,

Last week I asked all of you to send me questions, challenges you have with your presentations. Bapak Eka and Ibu Meiyana answered and they are both inquiring about the use of PowerPoint presentations. Read the Question and then read my answer. I believe, my answers are too short for many of you to understand PowerPoint fully. Therefore you can expect my next article to deal with PowerPoint presentations again, an overview.

If any of you would like to ask more questions, any question related to public speaking and presenting, please do so. I will answer them!

Question:

From Bapak Eka Wartana

I have a question for you. Nowadays, many people are using presentation Zen. The visual slides have minimal text and more information are explained verbally. For political and alike materials, it might be good to use presentation Zen.

But what about the technical presentation, whereby many diagrams are required to explain the topic better.

Would appreciate your views on when to use presentation Zen best, and when the use of a different type of presentation is better. Thanks.

Best Regards, Eka Wartana

Answer:

Bapak Eka, why do we have to choose one over the other? Theoretically both kinds could be incorporated into one presentation as long as you keep some elements consistent. For example the same basic look and color scheme.

It is a challenge to explain technical issues, I agree. The question is not so much what kind of slide to use. The first hurdle is answering the question: ‘how can I make this easy for my audience to understand. Remember AA Gym, his strength was explaining complex religious systems and rules through everyday simple stories.How can you simplify the complex idea first?

Since you do not provide me with any information on what you present, I cannot give you any examples. First things first: You need to know what your audience wants or needs to know. For example: Instead of a showing a whole financial statement, compare the 2 or three most important numbers in a pie chart or other simple graph. Show as much as possible the enlarged detail of what you are discussing. Make sure the audience only needs a few seconds to completely understand your slide.

Keep the text or numbers to the bare minimum to have a clear and striking diagram. Not all your explanations have to be supported by slides. The difficulty is in deciding what exactly you want to achieve. What will support and what will distract from your central message.

I am very happy to help you clarify your presentation in a few coaching sessions for FREE. We can meet or through discusson skype and email. If you agree, I will record and use it as sample coaching session(s) ‘How to PowerPoint presentations.

Question:

From Siti Meiyana Arafah

I have question for you, its about how to always make connecting between our presentation with our slide if we use it, because sometime I found the speaker/trainer will missing and seem not connect with slide their presented. So how to make always connecting and remember for what they must say in the next slide. I hope you can explain and for your kind attention and reply it I really appreciate and thanks so much. Kind regards, Meiyana

Answer:

Ibu Meyana, there is a bit of a misunderstanding here. Maybe you simply use the wrong word. A speaker should use PowerPoint to help explain his point and connect with his audience.

If the speaker does not rehears and practice his presentation well enough then he/she will have problems with proper timing. And this is one way of losing (not connecting) with one’s audience. In Toastmasters we may not use visual aids including PowerPoint until the project no. eight.

It is not easy to present and at the same time control your visual aid. It gets even more difficult if somebody else, although well meaning, is appointed to help you.To limit problems with slides, rehearse your presentation well, so that you are very familiar with all concepts and tools. The other remedy is: the fewer the slides, the fewer the chances for mishaps. A well told story will outdo any slide any day!

Next week you will receive an overview of how to use PowerPoint in presentations.

Please feel free to ask more questions connected with public speaking and presenting.